Lucy Stone (August 13, 1818 – October 19, 1893) - determined that men were reading the Bible in a way to suppress women, she worked her way through school to learn Greek and Latin to prove them wrong. Kept her last name, chopped her hair off, scandalously wore precursors to pants, was kicked out of church for arguing that women had the right to own property and to be able to divorce abusive alcoholic husbands. Considered a true radical for her time, she spoke in public frequently and headed multiple prominent womens organizations.

Dated from period of Pickering’s location at 612 George StreetThe photographs illustrate drunkenness in five stages, played by a male subject in a studio. Possibly commissioned by a local temperance group for educative purposes, the photographs may also have been used by an engraver for illustrations. The penultimate frame of the drunk in a wheelbarrow resembles S.T. Gill’s watercolour ‘Ease without Opulence’, 1863 (PXC 284/30). In 1866, NSW Premier James Martin introduced the Drunkard’s Punishment Bill — notes by Curator of Photographs, 2007. The printed studio mark on reverse reads “Photographic Artist. C. Pickering, 612 George Street, near Wilshire’s Buildings, Sydney”